This invention relates to a cooling module for integrated circuit chips and, more particularly, to a cooling module for integrated circuit chips which can effectively remove heat from a plurality of high-power integrated circuit chips mounted on a substrate, and which enables the easy replacement of the integrated circuit chips.
An apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,273 is an example of a cooling structure for a multi-chip module in which a plurality of integrated circuit chips are mounted on a single wiring substrate. This structure has two gaps (between the integrated circuit chips and a piston and between the piston and a housing) in a thermal conduction path which extends between the integrated circuit chips and a coolant, and it is necessary to rely upon a gas which has an extremely low thermal conductivity to transmit heat across these gaps. Since the facing surfaces of the piston and housing must have large areas, the length of the piston cannot be reduced, and so the length of the thermal conduction path is increased. Therefore, the extent to which the thermal resistance between the chips and coolant can be reduced is limited.